"Amused to Death:" Analyze the album

AGREE 100%.
Plz do visit Michael Simone's siteREG -Rog 's Int Fan Club sitefor an indepth and some very good analyses of ATD + Others.I reccommend PACOHH & RK as musthaves for any ROG fan.

I too had as idea on most of it... but getting to analyze the whole things... boy... Hats off man.

Most of the Roger solo albums i like, ATD, KR, PAKOHH, etc. THey all have more of a story going to them than the stuff that Pink Floyd w/o roger has; Division Bell, Momentary Lapse, etc lack a message, and the music isnt even comparible to the gold roger has made

Whether or not the music is "comparable" is subjective.

In case anyone hasn't noticed, Dave's albums are not like Roger's because he doesn't want them to be. Dave's divulged on more than one occasion that he was uncomfortable with Roger's Political blather in Pink Floyd songs. He's more into the
musical aspect; he wants to play his guitar, not bitch about war.
He fancies himself as a musician, not a poet.

As far as Roger's ongoing rants about war, it would indeed be wonderful if we could "Rodney King". But unfortunately, as long
as mankind keeps producing the likes of Hitler, Mussolini,
Stalin, Saddam Hussein, and tyrannical African dictators, there will continue to be wars.
Pacifism is a nice personal philosophy, but pacifists can only exist in freedom as long as there are non-pacifists willing to fight for their rights to be pacifists.

Those who beat their swords into plowshares will be conquered by those who kept their swords.

I agree with you on most of your thoughts, but I have a few that differ from your own:

"Three Wishes" is about dwelling on the past, and by doing so, you let the present get away from you.

"Watching TV" (one of my favs from the album) is an interesting one. There are 2 very different ideas I've come up with for this one. My first (and the one I like best) is how other people's misery becomes our entertainment...just like when a young soldier in Iraq gets killed by a suicide bomber, and his parents are interviewed on CNN, the mother barely holding back tears. That kind of thing has just gotten so much air time. My second idea is that it takes seeing something like that on TV before it's taken seriously. Most of the American public didn't care about China's oppression of its people...until we saw the Tianemen Massacre on tv (btw...in the song she was shot, not ran over, but it doesn't matter ).

"It's A Miracle"...yeah, I agree it's a bit about globalization, but the part about Lloyd Webber...well, I read in an interview he just sung that because he hates the man (I don't remember why).

Yeah, great thread!

Yeah, Stratters is correct about Dave and Roger's differences. Roger is a poet, Dave is a musician.

And on the other points you made...stratters, violence begets violence.

Violence also stops violence. And pacifism begets slavery. So what are you gonna do.

Listen to "Amused To Death"?

Actually I opted for "More"...

I always thougtht of the message of Watching TV to be Roger saying that TV is just a distraction and a thing that wastes life; people sit and stare at it and eventually get hooked into watching it and spend more and more time watching TV..........w/e

Analyzed To Death

Simply.....the more time passes by, the more this album fits what's going in these days and in the future. Rog has a deep sense of humanity that is clearly reflected in his brilliant lyrics.
I wonder how his new project would look like? I can't wait....


By the way...at the end of ''Late Home Tonight, Part1''..i noticed something so funny. None of you would never notice.....in the back ground a voice of a very famous Egyptian actor speaking in Arabic...it is actually part of an Egyptian movie called "the grandson" the words he said has nothing to do with the album's subject...the actor said: The daughter is always looking at the window and the nighbours (guys) are teasing her....I laughed when I heard this..apparentely Rog was switching TV stations and this part became part of the song...Still I wonder..was he looking for any Arabic movie to include it? Lol

Further into the interview, Roger touches on war and politics, and makes reference to a song he wrote recently about when he was a young man, hitchhiking back to London from Beirut, and the family who took him in and looked after him.
http://www.rogerwaters.org/2003-current.html#FEB04

Reading this part of this latest interview, with Rog recalling hitchhicking from Beirut to London may explain", in the song Three Wishes, his wish that They are safe in the Lebanon....

Do not get RADIO KAOS.

LOL...............I'm listening to it already.